We continue to be outraged by the not guilty verdict in the trial of Lonnie Swartz for the murder of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. Our hearts were lifted by joining with hundreds of community members to shut down downtown Tucson for hours on Monday evening in defiance of the injustice of this verdict, and in solidarity with the family of Jose Antonio and all those murdered by state violence. Contemplating the likely white jury members who pushed for a not guilty verdict in this trial, we are reminded yet again of the urgency of organizing white people against white supremacy.

We have rescheduled our open meeting for this coming Monday, April 30th. We hope you can join us. We will be talking about our upcoming plans to start canvassing and engaging white communities in taking action for racial, economic and climate justice during this electoral cycle.

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Carolyn Sugiyama Classen, a life long Democrat, was born & raised in the State of Hawaii, was a Legislative Aide for U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye on Capitol Hill, and practiced law for a while. In Tucson she worked as a tribal staff attorney for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and later was the Interim Executive Director of the now defunct Domestic Violence Commission. In 2008 she became a “My Tucson” guest columnist for the Tucson Citizen newspaper, then continued blogging for Tucsoncitizen.com for over four and a half years. Her blogsite was entitled “Carolyn’s Community” about community events and some political news, until Gannett Publishing shut down the site on January 31, 2014. She started with Blog for Arizona on Feb. 11, 2014.
Part time she has been sitting as a Hearing Officer in Pima County Consolidated Justice Courts Small Claims Division since April, 2005. She is married to University of Arizona Distinguished Professor Albrecht Classen, a native of Germany. They have one son, who lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and daughter.
She is also the Editor of the Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition website, www.southernazjapan.org (since Jan. 2013).